What can we bless together?

The following reflection is too good not to share.  It comes from Daily Feast: Meditations from Feasting on the Word, Year B.  While is applies to the lessons a few weeks ago, I continue to reflect on the first sentence.  The conversations all around us, public and personal, predominately focus on what is wrong.  As Christians can we be something else and realistic at the same time?  I believe we can!

Psalm 34:1-8
Reflection
There are many communities of faith today held together more by what they condemn together than by what they bless together.  Is your community one that condemns together or one that blesses together?  "Let us exalt his name together," is the hope of Psalm 34.  When the psalmist declares, "the images hearken back to the radiance of Moses."  It was Moses whose face shone with the glory after he had been in the presence of God.  Can the preacher describe a radiant face she has seen lately?  In particular, however, the hearer is urged to '"look to him" in order to be radiant.  The Lord might be rather like the sun, our star, after all.  It shines forth light that is then reflected.  Those who look to God actually reflect God.  The one who sees God is rather like the moon, then, or a planet, reflecting the light of the sun.  Even if each of us reflects that light at a different angle, or with perhaps a slightly different hue, the light itself is the light of deliverance (vv. 4 and 6.)
Sam Chandler

Response
Read this psalm.  What goodness of God have you seen reflected this day?

Community

In the summer, we attend an Episcopal Church on the North Fork of Long Island.  Yesterday the attendance was 30, usual and expected for this chapel sized church building.  The feeling of community in this congregation was much bigger.  Perhaps its because I have spent years listening for the heart beat of congregations that I hear the emotional tone when I worship.  However, I think I hear what everyone hears and the difference the years make is the practice to describing the sounds.

What did I 'hear' that spoke of community?  First, the teenager and the 50 something who greeted us at the door.  Once inside the door, the worshipper is inside the church so the usher's readiness to smile, to welcome, and to hand us a bulletin made all the difference.  Second, the congregation was settled, quiet, ready to pray and ready to worship.  The beginning of worship was not social time among friends, which clearly those outside the community would not have a part.  Instead, the preparation for worship created the time and space to place oneself in this community to share an experience of God.  Third, the congregation was smiling.  They liked being part of this community.  Fourth, everyone sang the hymns, and not all of them were old favorites.  Fifth, the sermon was well prepared, biblically focused, and practical.  The priest clearly spent time to prepare.  While some would say, 'its OK to slide in a few thrown together thoughts in the summer' this clergy person spoke to the most important 30 people in his week. Sixth, the  congregation prayed for people other than themselves. Seventh, people greeted us at the sharing of the peace and after worship.  Eighth, when the need for volunteers at the food pantry was announced I thought, "I could do that" because I knew I would be welcomed. I could go on.

The sounds of community came from those gathered to worship.  The size of the congregation did not make it less friendly or more friendly.  It was inviting, intentional, and joyous all at the same time. The community felt 'bigger' because the community was open, open to God and open to everyone present.

Those who care about congregations spend a lot of time managing the impact of congregational size. Yes, each congregation will fall within a range that creates networks of relationships and certain dynamics.  But community does not flow from congregational size.  A small congregation can be cold and a large congregation can be warm.  A large community can focus only on itself and a small community can serve God in the world.  A small community or a large community can be sloppy or intentional, welcoming or diffident, nervous or joyful, closed or open.  Community flows from the open hearts of those gathered to worship God.  We all hear community when we listen.

August 3

Significant life events are always followed by the day after the significant life event.  Yesterday, after months of careful preparation and planning, my daughter left for her junior semester abroad in China.  She'll be gone five months.  As I stood with her at the entrance of the airport security line, she thanked me for my support.  I told her parenting was equal parts supporting and worrying.  I am excited for her and supporting her adventure as well as always concerned about her.

So, today is the day after the significant start of this life adventure.  There is an emptying feeling, no more planning, check lists, tasks and counting down the days.  There is a void of her busy and steady presence of preparation.  There is a question of "now what?"  After looking forward to the start of this trip for so long, it remains for her to take it and for me to wait.

The day after, August 3, is not  just another day in the calendar.  Life for daughter and mother is changed.  It is ours to live into as a

Walk up the Beach

The crunch of the stones on St. Columba's beach is a sound that will stay with me forever.  Under foot the rubbing together of the stones sounds like the crunch of icy snow, only louder and more connected to the earth.  The sound of each foot step radiates from one ocean rounded stone to the next as they clack together to settle under the pressure of the pilgrim's step.  The crunch sound walking down to the ocean sounds different than the crunch sound walking back up the beach. Perhaps that is because the Iona Pilgrims walking back up the beach are different as well.

One day within the ten days of our pilgrimage to Iona, that small island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland and home of spiritual heart of the Iona community, one day is a pilgrimage around the island.  The middle of seven mile hike is on St. Columba's beach, the place he is reported to have landed on his missionary journey to carry Christianity from Ireland to Scotland.  To land in a new place, one must first leave an old place behind.  So pilgrims on the day of hiking, in the middle of their journey around the island are invited to pick up a stone from the beach that represents something we want to leave behind.  Then, each pilgrim holding her or his chosen stone ranging anywhere from the size of a walnut to the size of a football, hurdle the stone away into the sea. Like Columba, on that beach we cast away from an old place in order to land in a different place.  We are different when we walk up the beach to resume our pilgrimage.

We are different because we already believe we can be different through a life in Christ. As the letter to the Ephesians tells us this morning,  "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love." (1:3).  Our transformation begins for us, from the beginning of the world.  Our lives are not a sum of what is past but a promise to always move forward.  Our relationship with God is not one full of holes but full of love that God from the beginning intends for us. The rock into the ocean is swallowed up into the infinite expanse of God's love for us.

This letter to the Ephesian through the centuries has been used to justify Christian triumphalism. That believers in Christ are literally chosen in the sense of being singled out by God, picked as the favorite ones to live the holy and blameless life.  In this interpretation, even believers cannot help themselves to either be good or bad because God has already made the distinction.  The meaning of chosen is weighted with fate, inevitability, and destiny.

However, God choses not to single out and set apart.  God choses to form a new adoptive family, a new way that everyone is encompassed in the life of a loving God. God's choosing is into spiritual blessing. God's choosing is before the foundation of the world to include the whole of humanity.

What shape would your life take if you began from the place of being affirmed, chosen, loved by God? There is a well known quote from Desmond Tutu when  a man challenges the Archbishop by saying, "I don't believe in God."  "That's OK," the Tutu responds, "because God believes in you."

Sometimes I wonder if we spend too much time trying to figure out what is wrong in our lives rather than celebrate what is right.  We spend time trying to accomplish love rather than let love accomplish and complete us.  We spend time looking for the one rock on the beach that needs to be cast away rather than listening to the crunch of the rocks under foot as we walk back up the beach to a new place.

Faith Affirming

If anyone wondered if living in the life of Christ ever made any difference, the answer was plain to see in this past week.  Any range of reactions can be expected from a horrible murder/suicide of our colleague and friend.  A mentally troubled homeless man, every parish knows at least one of these wandering people.  A parish secretary and a co rector could be any of us.  A homeless man known to the parish with a gun kills the parish secretary, the co rector, and then himself forces us beyond the bounds of our ability of comprehend and cope. Any range of reactions can be expected as people feel the safety crumble beneath them.

For the people of St. Peter's, our neighboring congregation, St. John's and the people of the Diocese of Maryland, a range of reactions did not occur.  What occurred was an outpouring of love, anticipatory concern for anyone who might be effected, compassion even in the midst of anger, and an outpouring of offers to help.   We didn't get to that place of facing life by accident.  We got there through a life of Christ lived imperfectly yet faithfully every day.

Week of Reflection

After a week of reflection, why do you attend St. John's and why Jesus Christ?  Could you answer these questions if asked?   A Living Lord shapes our lives so that we can live as people fully alive in God.  A Living Lord shapes our lives so that we serve one another.  Its a both/and.  Jesus Christ about more than our personal spiritual growth and more than helping others.  Why Jesus?  Because when we are changed from the inside and serve the needs of the world through a life in Christ, then the Living Lord is alive for all.

As the week unfolds, more reflections on our question

Now we are at the fourth day of praying and reflection on our questions, "Why do you go to St. John's, and, Why do you believe in Jesus Christ/"  Is it time to put pen to paper, voice to voice, comment to comment?  I hope so.  Here is the continuation of my answer (first part was yesterday's post).

A Living Lord attends to each generation of the church.  He is made new for each person is a risen life, a life of fully living the joys and the pains of our humanity.  The community of disciples, to make the way of life known through his crucified and resurrected life known to others by many forms of witness.